Many of us who have admired your gifted leadership of our state are
stunned by your
support for expanding the gambling industry in this state. We hope
that you will reverse this position and provide strong, creative, far-seeing
leadership for reducing, and even eradicating, government support for
the social cancer of gambling.

We understand from your press
release last fall, when the Minnesota State Lottery published Gambling
in Minnesota: An Overview, that you “stated a preference to not
expand gambling in Minnesota.” Probably that stated preference was based
on your knowledge of the destructive effects of widespread gambling
on our culture. Therefore, it appears that you regard the financial
benefits to the state and the inclusion of northern tribes in the gaming
industry (in the name of fairness) as more desirable than the social
benefits of minimizing gambling. Many of us strongly disagree.

When we read that “the state’s gross revenues would be approximately
$164 million per year,” and that the “tribal entity” that owns the new
casino would receive twice that, what we hear is that the governor will
be glad that citizens of this state will lose that much money while
gambling at this casino. Not counting the relatively minor non-gambling
revenue, the real meaning of casino revenue is gambling losses. People
must risk money and lose it for the state to get its income. If every
one of the five million Minnesotans gambled at this new casino, each
one of them would on average have to lose nearly a hundred dollars a
year.

But, of course, millions of Minnesotans will not gamble at this casino—which
raises the losses demanded of those who do gamble to amazing numbers,
in order for the state to get its desired income. Every year Americans
wager billions of dollars in casinos and on lotteries, horses and dogs,
and other forms of gambling. Those who cash in on this industry are
not lovers of our nation; they are exploiting the poor, encouraging
folly, promoting greed, damaging our commitment to rewarding labor,
and undermining the character that makes a nation work.

The American exploitation of the poor with state-supported gambling
muddies the conscience of many legislators. Statistics abound that the
government-sponsored gambling exploits the poor. In my own Phillips
neighborhood in Minneapolis, one need only watch who gets on the bus
that takes them to the casino. It is the poorest of the poor.

Only a few, it seems, are willing to say how far and how manifold
are the corrupting effects of state-sponsored gambling. I encourage
you to ponder this insight from Richard Neuhaus:

In a democracy, the need for popular consent to tax is a powerful
check on government growth and irresponsibility. A government that raises
money by encouraging and exploiting the weaknesses of its citizens escapes
that democratic mechanism of accountability. [Just] as important, state-sponsored
gambling undercuts the civic virtue upon which democratic governance
depends. (First Things, Sept., 1991, p. 12).

We are disappointed that you are supporting the expansion of an industry
that “destroys marriages, undermines the work ethic, increases crime,
motivates suicide, destroys the financial security of families . . .
and dupes people into believing [it] will somehow benefit children”
(James Dobson, Gambling’s
Dirty Little Secrets, April 1999).

It is telling that tucked away in the news
release at your website is the admission that some of the income
from the gambling losses of our people will be set aside for “programs
for problem gaming.” So you are willing to promote an industry that
destroys many lives, and then take some of the income and try to do
remedial work with the human wreckage.

You are a Christian. I rejoice in that. I am not suggesting any naïve
attempt to “legislate your morality.” I am suggesting that the Bible
informs our vision of what is good for people, and our daily lives confirm
the wisdom of God (not that he needs it). That is surely the case with
gambling. Evidence abounds
that gambling damages the fabric of the community—especially the Native
community.

Gordon
Thayer is the Executive Director of American
Indian Housing Community Development Corporation, and former tribal
chairman of the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Tribe of Wisconsin. In an
interview yesterday he lamented the number of people that he works with
who come seeking help with their utility bill because they lost their
meager income at the casino. He commented that it is a sad day when
the people who once sat on the resources of our country now have to
resort to gaming.

“Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and
many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.
. . . Some by longing for it . . . have pierced themselves with
many a pang” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). In other words, the desire to be rich
is suicidal. And endorsing it by encouraging gambling is cruel.

It is wrong to endorse and support an institution that is bound to
confirm people in their weaknesses and to cultivate in others the greed
that would lie latent without this outlet. Expanded gambling will
hook most easily those people who need just the opposite, namely, encouragement
and guidance in fiscal diligence and responsibility.

I believe I speak for thousands, Governor Pawlenty, when I say, I
urge you to have the courage to stand for what is really good in the
long run for our state and not concede to the financial pressures or
the demand for “fairness” in an industry that cultivates a character
where fairness is irrelevant.